


Let not the wind example find

by el_em_en_oh_pee



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angsty Schmoop, Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Coparenting, F/F, Family, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Military Backstory, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, TO BRING BACK A PHRASE FROM OUR FANDOM PAST!!!!, idk domesticity and loss?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-07 06:55:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18615442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_em_en_oh_pee/pseuds/el_em_en_oh_pee
Summary: Maria survives Carol's death. She can survive Carol's return, too.





	Let not the wind example find

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to: steph, sam, charlie, jessi, and kim. y'all were instrumental in your own ways. particularly steph, sam, and jessi, who told me "you gotta" when i said "do i gotta?" and charlie, who beta read. you're the realest mvp here.
> 
> there's an ~*~epilogue scene~*~ that is NOT a spoiler for endgame because i wrote it before i watched endgame, but it DOES reference endgame. so yeah. also i've seen captain marvel twice and tried my BEST to remember the scenes referenced directly here, but [handwaves] may have misremembered here and there. this is firmly situated in mcu-canon; carol isn't an alcoholic (yet?) in this fic.

Maria’s not proud of it, but in the heartbeats between her long-lost whatever showing up in her yard and saying “Excuse me, I’m looking for Maria Rambeau,” and Monica running from the bird to the woman’s side, it’s not disbelief she feels. It’s not relief, or wonder, or joy.

It’s an all-consuming flash of rage.

Not at Carol, necessarily. Carol’s been dead for years, and now she’s not. Now she’s standing, wooden, while Monica tries to hug her. Now she’s saying “I’m not really who you think I am.”

Maria doesn’t know who she thinks Carol is. A ghost? A figment of her lonely imagination, of her wildest dreams? She’s had dreams like this before, a hundred of them. But they trailed off years ago, and in every single one of them, Carol looked thrilled to be back with her family.

She comes to stand behind her daughter, looks Carol dead in the eyes, and doesn’t recognize the person behind them. But when she reaches out, Carol’s arm is solid below hers. There’s a man - a spy, obviously - standing a respectful distance away, arms clasped the same way Broderick held his when he realized no one had told Maria Carol’s plane went down. When Maria catches his eyes, he nods, slightly.

It’s not till that moment that Maria allows herself to hope.

+++

Maria grew up in the Louisiana lowlands, so she’s familiar with heat and heavy, oppressive humidity. She medaled in cross-country and track in high school, so she’s used to running, the way it feels more like swimming, sometimes.

Colorado is different. It’s still hot in the summer, but the air is thin at the Academy, particularly compared to what she’s used to. It takes her a few days of falling behind the pack in training runs to learn how to catch her breath when she’s working out, and even then, it’s a struggle. Not just physically, either; as the niece of a Tuskegee Airman and a black woman in the Air Force Academy she knows she has to outshine everyone in order to be viewed competitively and get her wings. Running slow at the start isn’t going to help her any along the way.

“Thought you were some hotshot runner,” Williams says, jogging up behind her as she heads for the dorms. “Didn’t look so hot to me out there.”

Maria considers flipping him off, but she’s not used to the culture here yet; she doesn’t know how it’ll come across. “I didn’t realize you weren’t in class when we covered altitude effects last week!” she says instead. “Do you need to borrow my notes?”

Williams rolls his eyes at her and jogs onward.

“Nice one,” someone else says. When Maria turns, she sees a blonde girl grinning at her. “I can’t get used to the air here either.”

“They say it’ll come soon enough,” Maria says, and lets the girl fall into lockstep with her. “Haven’t seen you around before.”

“Carol Danvers,” the girl says, tucking a strand of hair that’s escaped her regulation bun behind her ear. “I think we’re in the same Military History class.”

“Maria Rambeau,” Maria offers. She resists the urge to check her own hair. She knows it’s pulled back tight. She wore it big in high school and constantly feels the low-grade headache of switching to military regulation just two weeks ago. “Nice to meet you.”

“Hey, wild question, but. Do you want to be workout buddies?” Carol asks. “Build up stamina, you know. Off-hours, when the gym’s not full of boys and judgement."

Maria’s always been athletic, because flying like Uncle Alex has always been her goal. The Academy is a different beast, though. She's tired all the time at this altitude, even without the daily physical requirements. Adding more will exhaust her, but maybe it'll make her adjust quicker. "So, at midnight?"

"Probably closer to 0100, airwoman," Carol says, and rolls her eyes, a sweeping commentary on the culture they've fought to enter. "You in?"

"Lord help me, I am," Maria agrees.

+++

Baby, Maria wants to say, the word heavy on her tongue as Carol stands in her kitchen and weaves a tale of alien intrigue and memories that she knows she’s missing. The exquisite torture of Carol being alive after all these years, but different now, an alien woman named Vers with supernatural powers emanating from her hands and no connection to Maria or Monica or the plane in the backyard, crashes over Maria.

It doesn't drown her, though. She didn't let Carol's death overwhelm her, as much as she wanted to, and she won't let Carol's reappearance and change overwhelm her either.

There was a time when every micro-expression Carol made told Maria a clear story. The slight press of her lips together when a man at base would make a chauvinistic comment that meant she was biting back a retort. The tilt of her neck when someone would mention Maria's blackness that meant Maria would have to grab Carol's shoulder immediately if she didn't want Carol launching off at the perpetrator.

The quirk of her lips, slightly deeper on the left, when she wanted to kiss Maria but they were in public and couldn't. The way she'd lift an eyebrow every time Maria beat her to a flight mission, like she couldn't help but be impressed and happy for her even though she'd wanted it just as much.

Carol - Vers - raises her eyebrows and tosses her hair and smiles at Monica in the right moments, but it's haunted and searching, like she's trying to put together puzzle pieces but several pictures have been dumped into one box and she doesn't know what any of them are supposed to look like.

Baby, Maria doesn't say. Doesn't give her the shape of any solutions. She holds herself back and tells Carol when her story sounds so outlandish there's no way it can be a lie.

This won't overwhelm her. She won't let it. She'll watch Carol turn to the spy and talk to him and let Monica run, roughshod, to Carol with all of the things of her's they've managed to preserve, and she'll listen to Carol and she'll be a friend and she won't touch. Won't get too close. Won't think about how Carol's hands have always been magical, just not in the way they are now. Won't set herself up for a fall that doesn't have to come. It's been six years since Carol Danvers died and Maria's been mostly fine for five of them. She doesn't need to risk her future.

+++

When Carol's plane goes down in an explosion so giant that all they can find is a portion of her dog tags, the hardest part is explaining what happened to Monica.

Monica knows what "dead" means as much as any child can, in an abstract sense where she knows that Carol has family who's dead, and Maria has family who's not dead, and that's why Carol lives with the two of them: because they're Carol's family now.

The news makes its way to base before Maria goes home for the evening. She's been lingering an hour past when she'd normally go home, waiting for Carol's return so that she can rib her about taking the shortcut and getting on the flight before Maria could get the chance. Waiting to watch the excitement spark in Carol's eyes, bright and beautiful, when she talks about flying with Dr. Wendy Lawson.

Instead, she hears chatter ebbing and flowing around her, a buzz of whispers between grunt-faced men until Broderick nuts up, pulls her aside, and plays her the tail end of a distress call. When she fights to be allowed to follow up on it the brass push her away, firm at first and then violently when she doesn't listen. 

For a single, endless moment, she debates getting on a bird and flying to Carol's last known coordinates anyway. She needs to see it for herself to believe it.

But Monica's post-kindergarten day care costs an arm and a leg, and she'll be wanting dinner soon. If Carol's not coming back tonight (ever, maybe, Maria thinks, but pushes the thought down) Maria's going to have to be the one to be there.

She runs into Jimmy Rhodes just outside the control center as he's heading in for the night shift. She can tell by his face that he's heard the distress call, too.

"Tell me," she says to him, desperately, trying to hide just how much this matters despite the way her voice is cracking. "The second you know anything. I don't care if it's the middle of the night. Call me so I know."

Rhodes doesn't know the extent of their relationship, but his daddy flew with Maria's uncle during World War Two and he's always been one of the few men on base to respect her and Carol as women pilots. "I promise," he says, after leveling a deep, penetrating look at her face. "I'll do what I can."

He squeezes her arm as she walks past him, and she shoots a grimace at him over her shoulder.

It was supposed to be a smile.

When she and Monica get home, Carol's coffee mug from that morning is sitting on the counter. There's a stain at its base, a ring of black against the chipped Formica they both hate but tolerate. Maria goes to pick it up and put it in the sink, brushing her thumb over Carol's lip-print on the side, but sets it back down on the counter instead.

With Monica in her booster seat at the kitchen table behind her waiting for Maria to start putting together her dinner, Maria grips the lip of the counter and leans on it, heavily, squeezing until the bite of the edge against her fingers is too painful to ignore. The setting California sun outside of the window above the kitchen sink is orange and beautiful and terrible to look at.

Maria hopes that Carol is looking at the sunset, too, away from the downed plane and on her own two feet, even as she feels in her gut that this can't be the case.

"Mommy?" Monica says, behind her, and Maria shakes herself, goes to get some fish-sticks out of the freezer and into the microwave.

When Rhodes calls her at two in the morning, voice heavy with pity, it's not a surprise but it's still deeply devastating. Maria doesn't sleep the rest of that night, just sits at the kitchen table with her hand curled around Carol's coffee cup from yesterday.

Once, around five, she takes a sip, fitting her mouth where Carol's was. It doesn't taste like Carol though. It's bitter from cold coffee, nothing like the good morning and good luck kiss Carol gave her twenty-four hours ago when they got the call from Dr. Lawson, right before Carol slipped out and beat Maria to base.

The worst part is Maria can't even be glad that it wasn't her; Monica still lost a mother figure either way.

The worst part is Carol's impression has faded from their bed after the three fitful hours Maria tried to put in last night.

The worst part is Maria can feel Carol's skin under her hand, a sense-memory so deeply embedded it's like she's actually there, when there's nothing left of Carol to so much as touch. She takes another sip of Carol's awful coffee to cut through the bitterness of the tears caught in her throat, and then stands and puts the cup back on the counter.

She shouldn't leave Monica alone, but it's an hour until Monica normally wakes up and she has to work out the ghost of Carol as best she can, so Maria slips on her running shoes and goes outside. She breaks her own record for her daily route, five miles around their neighborhood in just over thirty-five minutes, but it doesn't feel like a victory, and when she's under the stream of the shower she tucks her hands under her armpits and lets herself cry.

And then she forces herself out and into her uniform and wakes Monica up with toast and scrambled eggs. "Where's Auntie Carol?" Monica asks, looking at the empty space on the table. "Did she go to work already?"

Maria takes a deep breath, digs her fingernails into the meat of her fist. "Baby, Auntie Carol was in an accident," she starts, gently. She makes it through the entire thing without crying again.

+++

The black box recording is short and sparse. Maria watches Carol throughout, the sounds washing over her as the haunted, hunted look on Carol's face takes up most of her attention. Behind her, Nick Fury is making quiet, incredulous sounds; the alien Talos just radiates resignation.

Carol looks like she did when she found out her parents died in their second year at the Academy. It's a complicated expression, but it's also the first time Maria feels comfortable interpreting the expression of this stranger Vers in her Carol's body. Her entire face, her entire stance is screaming that the knowledge of the event itself isn't going to ruin her, but the implications might.

It's not that Maria ever stopped loving Carol. It's not that she found someone else. It's that she let the part of her who made Carol as much of her world as Monica was, as flying was, go dormant. But the tremble of Carol's lip, the way some strands of hair are frizzing as her hands glow without Carol even noticing that they're activated, is threatening Maria's peace. Her love for Carol never died, and Carol listening to her own supernatural rebirth is threatening to wake Maria's love right back up again.

It's the protective instinct that Maria's developed since having Monica. The one that wants her to keep her loved ones from feeling pain. She knows that Carol is a grown-ass woman, but from the snippets Carol has shared, Vers the Kree was expected to bottle up emotion rather than express it, so Maria isn't certain that Carol will be able to weather this storm.

Maria can't help it. She can't let Carol go through this alone. She, too, is a grown-ass woman; she'll figure out a way to handle the fallout.

"I remember," Carol says, once the recording is over and she's caught her breath again. "Not everything," she adds, later, but Maria didn't need the clarification. She could tell as much just from how the way Carol looked at her didn't change.

+++

"Hurry up, Rambeau!" Carol yells from outside the bathroom door. "We'll be late, and then they'll never let us finish pilot training!"

Maria doesn't move. She knows that these tests are a lot less accurate than a doctor, but the technology is improving every day and she can't trust this going on her record. What does it matter if I graduate? she thinks, staring at the results. They don't let pregnant women fly anyway.

"Maria," Carol calls again, rattling the door. "What's up, are you okay? Was it that shrimp last night?"

Maria wishes it was the shrimp. Never trust shrimp in Colorado, that's what her dad always said and she should have listened. But the vomit was from a fetus, not food poisoning, so.

Carol is her best friend. Carol encouraged Maria to go after Robert when she showed interest, and cradled Maria's head against her chest when he ended things. Maria's not typically a cryer, but being so close to her favorite person on the planet helped her feel better anyway. Carol can be trusted with this.

Maria pulls her pants up and opens the door.

"You're not even dressed," Carol says, as she comes through into the bathroom. "You - are you _crying_?"

"No," Maria says. It's not a lie, anyway; it's more abject panic than tears. She's always wanted a family. She just wanted one with -- well. With someone she was married to, once she's already got her wings and isn't risking her chances at the future she wants. "Bobby got me pregnant."

"I'll kill him," Carol says, immediately. "They'll never find the body."

"Fuck him, he's not worth the effort," Maria says, immediately. "No, I just - I want to fly, you know?"

"We'll figure it out," Carol promises. She pushes herself up onto the counter by the sink and sits down, grabbing Maria's hand and pulling her between her legs. She hugs Maria, tight, until Maria relaxes in her arms. "You'll get your wings. I'll help you with whatever you need. Do you want, um. I know a clinic."

"I've always wanted a kid," Maria mumbles against Carol's shoulder. She loves the way Carol's body feels against hers, is the thing. She has for years. She pursued Bobby because he was an easier prospect than another woman, and he ended things, mostly because he was a scumbag but partly because she cared to spend more time with her best friend than her boyfriend. She doesn't know that she'll be able to build a family with another man in the future, not with the way she feels about Carol, no matter how Carol might feel in return. She wants this chance, she just wishes… "The timing just sucks, though."

"Oh, babe," Carol says, squeezing Maria tight. She lets her loose too soon, and gives her a critical look. "Turn around," she says. "Let's get you ready for graduation."

So Maria turns around and Carol sets about pulling Maria's hair back, twisting it into a tight regulation bun. She reaches for the jar of vaseline on the counter, dips some out, and starts smoothing back Maria's baby hairs.

Maria doesn't let white people touch her hair, but Carol asked to be taught once when Maria's wrist was sprained and she couldn't get it in order. The feeling of Carol's fingers against her skin as she bumps up against Maria's face is so nice, every time, that Maria hasn't asked her to stop since.

"Just say what you need from me," Carol says, leaning forward so that it's just a whisper in Maria's ear. "I'll do it."

"You'll help me raise them?" Maria asks. She doesn't dare hope. It's not precisely the family configuration she's been dreaming of for over three years now, but it's as close as she can reasonably ever get. "If that's what I choose?"

"Baby, that kid won't even know who its real mom is," Carol promises. They both let the absurdity of the statement linger between them and float away without comment. She runs her fingers over Maria's hair one more time, then pats her on the shoulder, nudging her forward. "If that's what you want."

"But flight school," Maria says.

Carol slides off the sink and moves so that she can look Maria dead in the eye. "We'll figure it out," she says. "If you want this baby and flight school, you'll get this baby and flight school. If you pick one over the other, you'll still get another chance at both."

"But first we have to graduate," says Maria with a nod. She can talk to people tomorrow to figure out her real options, she supposes.

"Let's fucking do it!" Carol says, reaching for where Maria's dress uniform is hanging on the back of the bathroom door. She hands it to Maria with a pointed look. "Dress fast."

Maria grabs Carol's hand before she can leave, and when Carol glances back at her, Maria holds her gaze. "Thank you," she says, seriously, meaning it on multiple different levels.

Carol pauses for a moment, eyes searching. Then she nods.

+++

Maria hovers at the doors to the quadjet, watching Carol and Monica talk.

Monica's mentioned that damned leather jacket so many times in the past few hours that there's no way to hide the fact she's seeking to push Carol into a memory. That jacket was Carol's prized possession; she'd inherited it from the oldest female pilot she'd met in training and she took care of it better than she took care of herself.

Better than she took care of anything, really besides Monica. So if Carol were fully Carol and not this Vers mystery in front of them, she'd be sad that Monica got ketchup on it. She'd give her a little lecture about respecting important things, and then she'd hug Monica and forgive her.

She does none of that, but she extends her arm and lets Monica play with whatever alien tech is strapped to her wrist and, as Maria watches, their daughter lights Carol up into a series of rainbows of color until Carol's look is sufficiently divorced from one alien race and fully her own.

That's when Carol hugs Monica. Not like she used to, but more than she has in the scant hours since her return, and Maria feels her heart fly up and fill her throat.

She has to turn away. Has to look at this plane, outfitted to go into outer space, and wonder at her life.

Carol didn't ask her to leave the planet for her, but in the end, she didn't have to. Somewhere between _I have to do this. I'm sorry_ and _my adoptive alien race will probably annihilate the planet if I don't sort this out_ , Maria insisted on flying with her. For all that her daughter - their daughter - will be left behind, she has to trust that Carol will bring her back. And she can't leave Carol to fight this battle alone. Not now. Not for all the anger and sadness in the world. Not when Carol is so quiet and determined and full of good humor despite the fact that her memories are gone and all she has left is the knowledge that her adoptive community lied to her for years about her origin.

Not when Maria still loves her like this.

+++

"Mommy," Monica says, climbing up onto the couch next to Maria and wrapping her tiny little arms around Maria's side.

Maria slips an arm around her daughter and squeezes. She's been taking Carol's death easier than Maria has, so far, but she still clearly misses her. "Yeah, baby?"

"Is Mama really not coming back?"

Maria freezes. Doesn't think of the closed-casket funeral, the empty coffin, the way Monica sobbed at the gravesite after trying her best to understand what's going on. Doesn't think of her bed, too big now, empty and cold except for when Monica has nightmares and comes crawling in. Focuses, instead, on how her daughter has finally recognized Carol for her truest role in Monica's life now that she's dead and buried and gone forever.

Maria clears her throat. "Auntie Carol," she corrects, hoarsely and firmly and hating herself a little for taking this away from Monica now. "You mean Auntie Carol. Yeah, baby, she's gone now."

"She can keep flying though, right?" Monica asks, leaning her curly head against Maria's side. "With the angels, I mean."

"Baby, she's going to fly forever," Maria promises. _Higher, further, faster,_ she hears, in Carol's lilt. She swallows hard, blinks twice, doesn't cry in front of their daughter. Her daughter. Whatever.

Monica nods, seriously. "So heaven's just clear skies?"

"For Auntie Carol?" says Maria. "Clear skies and endless gas, yeah."

"I miss her," says Monica, and then: "I won't call her Mama again, Mommy. Not if it hurts you."

Pain, sharp and tinged with guilt, shoots through Maria's core. "You didn't call her that to her face, did you, baby?"

"Not really," Monica admits. "But she was, wasn't she?"

Maria leans over and kisses her daughter's head. Lingers there for a few minutes too long, until Monica squirms away. "Yeah, baby, she was."

"I think I'm going to miss her forever," Monica declares, after a minute. She pats Maria's knee, though, a reassuring gesture from such a young child. "I'm glad you're still here, though."

The pain is suffused with nausea, too. "Me too, honey," says Maria. She hates being here, fighting through the ranks of awful, chauvinistic men without Carol at her side. Maria's never been the type to hide her feelings, always quick with a comeback, but it was easier when there were two of them that could fight back with words and with actions. Now that there's just one, there's a little less joy in proving the good old boys wrong.

When they were younger, she told Carol that the ten years the Air Force demanded of its pilots didn't seem like a daunting task. Now that she's facing the last four and a half years on her own, it feels so much worse.

But Monica is worth it. Monica is worth being left behind. Carol may have been the first love of Maria's life, but Monica is her second and biggest, and if Maria can't share her life with both of her loves at least it's Monica who's stayed.

She kisses the crown of Monica's head again, and lets her pick the card game they play before bed that night.

+++

Carol is: beautiful. Capable. Full of joy as she and Maria work together to guide the bird out of atmo and into the cold of space. She's good at this. She's always been good at this kind of thing, good enough that the fact the Air Force wouldn't let Carol fly combat was a black mark on their efforts to get the best and bravest airmen in their ranks. Maria never thought much of the Gulf War; it had seemed like a terrible idea and cause from the start, ordered by a terrible president, but it's really in the Air Force's favor that Carol's plane went down before she got a chance to fight to fly in it.

Maria's no idiot. She's always given credit where credit is due. She knows that she's always been just as good as Carol in the air, and better than Carol at the mechanical maintenance of their birds. There was a time she'd fight just as passionately as Carol to be allowed to fly with the boys into battle. But she's also pragmatic, and human, and that time came before she had a daughter with no other parents to care for her if something happened to Maria. Maria's a mother and a survivor and these things come before flying into war zones any day of the week.

And yet, here she is. Carol is back and they're flying together into the great unknown. Maria's good in a fight and clearly Carol has certain powers in her favor that put her head and shoulders above the rest, now, but the fact remains that Maria is flying a hastily-retrofitted earth-atmo vessel into space to provide backup as needed on an alien scientist's lab, somewhere in Earth's outer orbit. There's a good chance they'll make it back just fine, but there's also a chance that Monica will be left motherless, alone with Maria's parents and no knowledge of what happened.

 _Trust_ , Maria tells herself, and touches the Monica necklace around her throat, and runs her left thumb over her naked left ring finger for a split second before reaching to push the throttle forward.

If you'd told Maria a year ago - a _day_ ago - that she'd leave Earth, ever, she'd call you crazy. If you'd told her she'd be leaving Monica behind on some giant mission, she'd call you certifiably insane.

If you'd told her she'd be going with Carol "Avenger" Danvers, she'd have slapped you in the face and not said anything at all.

Maria's stomach flips over at the fact that she's here, doing this, now, with Carol at her side. Or maybe it's just the loss of gravity.

+++

Maria's morning sickness is long over, and she's somehow not showing too much, even in her flight suit. Her contract with the Air Force - advanced flight training in exchange for ten years minimum service - is signed and notarized and there's no clauses that say it'll be taken away if she ends up with child.

"Are you sure?" Carol asks, giving her a meaningful look over the fuselage of the training bird. "Like, I was doing some reading and there's nothing that says whether it's safe to fly when you're... you know."

Maria's heart swells, just a bit. Carol's read more parenting books in the two and a half months since Maria found out she's expecting than Maria has, herself. Though that may have something to do with Carol growing up in a silent, distant family with one older brother while Maria, an only child, had approximately ten thousand cousins running around at all times during her own childhood. Maria knows the essentials, and since Carol seems committed to helping her with everything else, she thinks maybe there's less to worry about, less need to fret the round-the-clock care and midnight feedings, than if she were going it alone. What else is there?

Still. "You're not going to beat me into the skies like this," she tells Carol with a wicked grin, running her finger along the steel rivets in the side of the plane. God. She's flown a few birds in her time; took every single elective at the Academy that would let her into a cockpit, but there's something to be said about going solo for the first time. 

Carol rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah," she says, and walks around the nose of the bird. She rests her hand on Maria's arm, letting it linger a little longer than strictly necessary. Her fingers are hot through the coarse weave of Maria's flight suit, and Maria has to concentrate to keep from leaning into the touch. "I guess last one to the coordinates is a rotten egg, then?"

And then Carol is running to her own bird, one foot on the steps up to the cockpit before Maria even registers that she should be climbing into her plane. She stirs into motion then, thundering up the few steps and hauling herself into the cockpit, pressing the buttons that clamp the plane shut around her. 

Technically, they have to wait for the go-ahead from control, but the second Maria gets the go-ahead, she's thundering down the short runway and hauling the nose of her bird into the skies, pointing straight at the blue between the clouds hanging over the base. Carol is to her left, just far enough behind to keep safe, close enough that Maria can imagine her grin behind the helmet when Maria shoots her finger guns. 

The books Carol's been reading say that Maria should be feeling the baby move any day now. But the swooping in her belly is all the air beneath her wings today, a stiff headwind that Maria angles straight into. There's a little drag on the bird but not too much, not enough to slow her down to a degree that the instructors watching from the ground will raise it as a concern when Maria's back on land. 

Carol's voice crackles over the radio. She's not speaking just to Maria's headset - everyone at control can hear what she's saying, too - but it still feels deeply private. "Photon, this is Avenger."

"I read you, Avenger," says Maria, grinning into the sun. "Loud and clear."

"Photon, please tell me how batshit cool this is," Carol says. There's a laugh hiding in her voice, there for Maria to hear but not clear enough that control will catch on. "Over."

"Cooler than the North Pole," Maria says, and pushes the throttle a little deeper. The speed at her fingertips is crazy, plane accelerating to the point where Maria feels like the skin of her face is stretching back, like her baby is nestled closer to her spine than physically possible. "Bet you I can do cooler maneuvers than you, Avenger."

"You're on, Photon," says Carol, and then she's pulling her bird into the tight roll they've been training for with backup instructors for weeks, half a second ahead of Maria.

That night, burdened by gravity once again, they go to Pancho's Bar. Maria sips a club soda with lime and watches as Carol does a series of tequila shots, more and more hair pulling free of her bun with each toss of her head.

Maria has the skies. She has the baby in her belly, and she's not going to get fired for it, even when she tells the Air Force. She has everything she's dreamed of since she was a kid herself, sitting on Uncle Alex's lap and listening to him tell her about flying in the War. She shouldn't want for things she has no hope of having, like the way that a strand from Carol's temple is curling, stuck to her neck with the slightest sheen of sweat as Carol dances to some terrible music from the jukebox. She shouldn't want to reach out and loosen it, stroke it back and tuck it behind Carol's ear and press a kiss to the spot where it used to be sticking. 

Carol grins at her, and reaches out to grab Maria's hands. "Dance with me," she yells over the music. 

Maria is only human. She lets Carol pull her into some sort of shuffle to the beat of the song. She flips off the flyboys talking bullshit at the two of them, jealous as they are that she and Carol got their first solo flights today, ahead of the curve, before Carol even has a chance to react with her usual fire. "I'm glad we're in this together," she tells Carol in a lull between songs, and Carol's grin in response is fucking blinding.

"You and me against the world, baby," Carol says. Her cheeks are flushed with the drink and with joy, and for a split second, she runs one hand over Maria's stomach, a soothing touch where the baby is growing. "Love you, Photon."

Maria lets herself imagine, for one beautiful, terrible second, that Carol means it the way Maria wants it to be. "You and me, Avenger," she says, and buys Carol another shot.

+++

Carol is beautiful when she's fighting. Brighter than a star, and it's not because of her powers.

"You've been training nonstop for six damn years, haven't you," Maria says, when they've reached a lull and she's leaning against the door of a freakin' alien _space ship_ to catch her breath.

Carol shoots her a smile, even brighter than her fighting form. "You know me," she says.

"Always gotta be the best," Maria agrees. She glances at Carol. "It's why we became friends, you know."

"Because I wanted to be the best?"

"Because we wanted to help each other do better than anyone else," Maria says. "Flyboys, every damn person who said it was stupid for a woman to get her wings, everyone."

"Looks like we both made it," Carol says, and then another blue alien comes around the corner and she's off again, glowing with light and power and grace.

Maria's not caught up in Carol's gravity, swept along with the tide. She draws her weapon and chooses to follow her into battle.

+++

"She's down," Carol says, easing the screen door closed behind her and lowering herself onto the stoop next to Maria. She passes over a bottle of beer, cap already twisted off. When Maria takes it, Carol taps the neck of her own bottle against Maria's.

"Thanks," says Maria, taking a long swallow of the beer. "Lord, this day."

"You did good today, Photon," says Carol. "Real good. I'm proud."

"Yeah, but I shouldn't have to fight to be let back into the cockpit of my own damn bird," Maria says, taking another sip. She rests the bottle on the stair above where she's sitting and picks at the label. "I had Monica a _year_ ago. I'm back in fighting shape. She's in day care. There's literally no reason to ground me."

"You don't have to tell me," Carol says. She reaches across the gap between them, puts her hand on Maria's and holds it until Maria stops fiddling with the peeling paper sticker around the neck of the bottle. Maria doesn't move her hand away, though, just lets the warm weight of Carol's fingers press against her skin. She smirks at Maria. "But you sure told them."

"I sure did, didn't I?" Maria says, and allows herself to laugh. Sure, she missed what Monica's daycare said was her daughter's first steps that day, but she read the brass the riot act and got herself back in her bird, without even getting in more trouble for the fight. That new woman, Dr. Lawson, certainly helped when she walked in on the fight and spoke in Maria's favor; Maria is deeply grateful to her for it. "Got my wings back."

"Higher, further, faster, baby," Carol says, and squeezes Maria's fingers with her own.

Maria looks at her, a long, silent moment. It's charged, the moment hanging between them. Carol's lips are chapped from where she always chews them during practice runs, her hair down for the night, falling soft around her shoulders. She's wearing her favorite ratty pair of jeans, a white t-shirt with no bra, and that leather jacket she loves so much, and Maria loves her. It's no different to the way she's loved her before, or the way she'll probably keep loving her till the day that she dies, but in this moment with the setting sun lighting Carol's eyes up, washing Carol's face in a rosy glow, that love doesn't feel impossible. 

Carol is the bravest woman Maria's ever met, flying and fighting fearlessly, but Maria's been raised courageous her whole life. Raised to take the risky choices when they're the right ones, even if they seem daunting at the front. 

"Carol," Maria says, leaning forward. She swallows Carol's reply with a kiss, a quick, clumsy press of her lips against Carol's.

When she pulls back, she meets Carol's gaze dead-on.

"Maria," says Carol, reaching up with her free hand and swiping her thumb right across her lower lip. "Are you --?"

"I'm sure if you are," Maria tells her, gaze never wavering, and when Carol leans in, Maria meets her halfway.

+++

Flush with the thrill of victory, Maria sweeps Monica up into a big bear hug, swinging her around and kissing her head.

"Mommy, did you and Auntie Carol do it?" Monica asks, eagerly.

"We did it, baby," says Maria, and goes to open her home to all the Skrulls that she flew down to earth.

Monica looks around. "Where _is_ Auntie Carol?" she asks. "You - she didn't - again, she didn't..."

"She made it, baby," says Maria, and accepts Monica's hug, head tucked against Maria's front. She strokes her hair. "She's just wrapping up, I think."

She hopes.

When Carol makes it back, she's even lighter and brighter than she was before space. " _God_ , Maria, you should have seen me up there," she says, sitting down on the porch swing next to Maria while Agent Fury is in the kitchen with the Skrulls and Monica, putting together some kind of meal. She tilts her head against Maria's shoulder. hair falling across her face. 

Maria allows herself to wrap her arm around Carol's back, and no more. It's hard, but touching Carol, she thinks, would be even harder. "I saw plenty up there," she says.

"I told Yon-Rogg to shove it where the sun don't shine," Carol says, happily. "I kicked his ass when he tried to trick me into losing."

"You always were good at that," says Maria, and swallows the _baby_ before she can let it fly. "Putting men in their rightful place."

"I hope I remember it all someday," Carol says, lightly and without deeper meaning. Maria's arm tightens around Carol's shoulders just the same, a gut reaction. 

"Me too, Danvers," she says, and tries not to hope too hard.

+++

Carol's hands are everywhere, fingertips pressing hot into Maria's skin, easing her thighs wider apart, holding them steady. "Baby," Maria says, and allows her hands to tangle in Carol's hair.

"Love you," says Carol, nipping at the sensitive skin of Maria's inner thigh. "Love you so much." She pushes her nose though the damp curls at Maria's crotch, breath hot and damp against Maria's flesh there. 

"Love you too, baby," says Maria. She curls her hands around the slats in the headboard, holds on tight. The bite of the wood against her fingers is an exquisite counterbalance to Carol's relentless tongue as she presses it against Maria's cunt and licks, firm and wet and beautifully repetitive. 

Maria's arousal curls up inside of her, tight in her thighs and her belly as Carol works at her clit, pushing three fingers of one hand deep inside Maria, stretching her and crooking and filling her up. It coils, hot and tight and squirming, and she comes with a shudder, relaxing through the aftershocks.

Carol tastes like her when they kiss, and it's the work of a moment to reach between Carol's legs and rub at her clit, tight, hard circles while Carol rolls her hips into Maria's hands, pushing hard against Maria's palm. 

Carol's noisy in her orgasms, so she bites Maria's lips and lets Maria swallow the noise, tries to keep the baby from waking up. "We're getting good at this," she says, once she's rolled to the side, sweaty, gorgeous breasts heaving in the dim light of the bedroom. 

"Third time's always the charm," Maria agrees, and leans over to press a sloppy kiss to Carol's shoulder. 

They lay there in the afterglow for a few minutes before Carol hauls herself up to get them a glass of water. "Did you want me to take Monica to her check-up tomorrow?" she asks, once she's come back and they're both sitting on the edge of their bed.

Maria's bed.

Their bed.

"Why?" Maria asks, startled.

"Well, I know you have that maneuver with Rhodes and Scott tomorrow," says Carol. "Figured you'd like to get some airtime in beforehand so that you can leave them in your dust."

Maria laughs and presses another kiss to Carol's shoulder. "That would be nice," she agrees. "But I couldn't possibly ask you -"

"I'm offering," Carol says. She sounds.... affronted? Somehow? "Maria, I offered the day you found out you were pregnant and again the day you made me Monica's godmother and I'm not going to back down from my promise just because we're... we're..."

"We're what?" Maria asks, prickled. "Fucking?"

"In a committed and loving relationship," Carol corrects, twisting to look at Maria head on. Her jaw is set the way it always is when she's trying to be brave, and any fight welling up in Maria dissolves at the way she looks, lips pressed together and eyes serious and calm. "However new it might be."

Maria sighs. "You're right," she says, and kisses Carol swiftly. "I love you."

"Love you too," Carol says with a grin. "So, I'll take Monica to the check-up, and you can pick her up from daycare next week when I have that meeting with Dr. Lawson."

Maria shakes her head. It's not _not_ disbelief at how easy Carol makes it all sound.

" _What_?"

"You're a good parent to our daughter," Maria says, letting a rueful smile cross her face.

Carol freezes, watching Maria carefully. "Your daughter, you mean," she says, finally.

Maria rolls her eyes. "I said what I said."

"Are you--?"

"If you ask me if I'm sure, I'll kick your ass in sparring practice Friday," Maria warns, and Carol laughs.

They're curled up in bed, Carol wrapped around Maria's back, arm over her stomach, before Carol talks again. "Thank you," she whispers, and brushes a kiss to the back of Maria's neck.

Maria reaches behind herself, blindly, and pats Carol on the side. "You more than earned it," she says through a yawn, and smiles when Carol kisses her again.

+++

_We need you, too_ , Maria thinks, when Carol gives the inevitable news that she's got to fly off and help all the disenfranchised aliens across the universe. Carol wouldn't be the woman Maria loves if she didn't stand up for the little people, but Maria's selfish side - which she's allowed to grow in the years since she left the Air Force - wants to hold onto Carol and never let go.

But she couldn't. Carol doesn't have her memories back, and Maria could never be the one to force her to stay grounded. 

It doesn't make the knowledge that Carol's leaving the planet as quickly as she arrived less of a bitter pill to swallow, though. 

Maria's wonderful, amazing, brilliant daughter, though, turns to Carol and says "But Auntie Carol, do you _have_ to?" She widens her eyes, amping her cuteness up to eleven and working hard to get Carol to concede.

But Carol doesn't. She reaches forth and cups Monica's cheek, pity in her voice, and explains why it's so god-damned important for her to leave them behind.

Maria gets it, kind of. And even if she didn't, it's important to let Carol have an actual choice in the matter when the possibility of choice was ripped from her hands so many years ago. 

But for all that she knew this was coming, for all that she gets why it's an important choice for Carol to make, Maria is still upset. Rage, as hot as when Carol showed up in her yard just a scant two days ago, burns hot through her veins.

And then she takes a deep breath, and swallows hard, swallows the anger down until it subsides. "You be safe out there," she says, pulling Carol into a tight hug, trying to ignore the betrayed look their daughter is levying upon Maria for allowing Carol to leave. 

And then Carol's lighting up and preparing to launch off to Lord knows where, God knows how far away into space, and she can't let her go yet. Her selfish side wins, just for an instant. 

She pulls Carol back into a hug, pressing her mouth against Carol's ear. She knows Carol's given Agent Fury some communicating device. She knows that she has no right to be jealous, not when Carol doesn't understand the breadth and depth of their shared history. "You keep in touch with us, you hear?" she says, anyway, quiet enough that Monica can't hear. 

Chooses to interpret Carol's barest of nods as a promise.

Lets her go.

+++

Maria's ten year commitment to the Air Force, the promise she made the US Government in exchange for the power of flight, go up right around the time that Carol's absence in their home stops being a surprise. There's rumors on the horizon that the Air Force is actually going to start letting women fly combat missions, but Maria's got a daughter with no other parents at home, and even though she wants to honor Uncle Alex's legacy, she's not going to do that to her tiny little family. She's honored him enough, she thinks, by being one of the first black women to get her wings in the military.

He always did used to talk about Bessie Coleman like she was the greatest hero to walk this earth, Uncle Alex. 

"They're losing a good airwoman," Jimmy Rhodes says, when Maria declares an end to her service. He gives her a sharp, knowing look, then clarifies: "Another good airwoman."

"I got a daughter to take care of," Maria points out, and then smiles. "If you ever need your plane tuned up by someone who won't ruin the wiring in the fuselage, though, you can find me in Louisiana. I'll send you my number. Just in case."

Jimmy squints at her. "Because my dad and your uncle flew together?"

"Because you're my friend, dumbass," Maria says, and laughs at the relief on his face. "You're gonna be a lifer, aren't you?"

"I can't imagine what could pull me away," Jimmy agrees, and claps her on her back. "You take care of yourself, now. You hear me?"

"I hear you," says Maria.

Louisiana is hotter and wetter than she remembers, particularly after all the dry years she spent in inland California, fighting to get as many flight ops as she can. Monica takes to it like a duck to water, running through the yard of the house Maria buys pell-mell all the livelong day. It's a nice house, what with Maria's Air Force savings and the money she makes fixing up planes and engines in the city and doing trick flying with the little biplane she keeps under a shelter in the backyard. It's in a good school district for Monica, and one that isn't overwhelmingly white like Monica's school close to base.

She expects it to be equally important that there's no ghost of Carol lingering around, sitting on the front porch steps and curling up in their bed. As it turns out, though, Carol's absence is a different kind of reckoning in this new home. Empty spaces that can't ever get filled up with memories.

But Monica is a treasure, her joy lighting up all the dark corners. And Maria's parents being just a drive away sure is nice after four years of making do as a single parent with a military job. 

It doesn't feel like home, not at first, not like she expected it to. But there's something freeing about being able to take her little biplane up whenever the mood strikes her, about not having to fight for her place in the skies. About her neighbors knowing her and Monica as a duo, and not knowing how they changed when they lost the third leg of their little family. 

It's a blessing, too, Maria thinks: how Monica doesn't forget Carol, but she also understands not to bring her up all the time. About how sometimes she crawls into Maria's bed at night, for all that she's a big girl now, and curls up against her mom and whispers that it's different here but it's all going to be okay.

Maria's heart breaks for her daughter, but they're growing strong here in Louisiana and that's more than they ever could have done in that arid, dusty California military town they left behind.

+++

Monica's twelfth birthday is a boisterous affair. The neighbor's kids come over, and Monica's little school friends, and they climb all over the plane and ask a million questions about how it runs.

Maria has just ducked away to pour lemonade into a series of plastic cups when she sees a flash of blue and red and gold out of the corner of her eye. 

She drops the ladle and the cup she's holding; they both land in the dirt and lemonade splashes all over her feet, but she's running too fast to care.

She draws up short just in front of Carol. "You're here," she says, reaching out and stopping short of running her hands all over Carol's body. "Is everything okay? Are you alright? Why - why are you here?"

"Well, I remembered that it was a special little girl's birthday," Carol says, with a smile that doesn't fully meet her eyes. "I couldn't just ignore that."

"Monica's going to be so thrilled to see you," Maria says. She pauses, looks Carol over more critically. She doesn't know how to read new-Carol's expressions, but something about her face feels so strongly of the Carol Maria remembers from before. Carefully, she adds, "I know I am."

Carol gives her a long, searching look. "Is it okay if I stick around for a few days?"

"Is it o- of course it's okay," Maria says, holding her hands out, beseechingly, to the heavens above. "She asks if it's okay. Like we'd ever turn you away." She pauses. "But be warned: Monica may not let you leave."

" _Just_ Monica?" Carol asks, casting a near-feverish look over Maria's face.

Maria freezes. "Carol--"

"I," Carol starts, and then a speed-demon of a child rockets into her, screeching her name and practically toppling the both of them over with the force of her hug. "Later," she mouths over the back of Monica's head, and lets herself be dragged into the festivities.

That night, when Monica's had a sugar crash and passed out, Maria finds Carol on the porch.

Feeling something a lot like deja vu, she hands Carol an open bottle of beer and sits down next to her. "You remembered?"

"I remembered," Carol says. "I was helping this clan of Skrulls on another arm of the galaxy, and they'd lost all the men, you know?" She pauses. "Actually, I still don't know if Skrulls experience gender like humans do. But the ones who don't bear young, they were all gone. And the rest were raising all the kids together, and it felt so familiar." She pauses, takes a sip of her beer. "And then I figured out why. And then I did some math, realized how close Earth was to our daught-- _your_ daughter's birthday. So I came home."

"Our daughter," Maria says, carefully. "You were right the first time."

Carol pulls Maria into a hug, tight around the shoulders, but doesn't kiss her. "I almost didn't," she admits. "I didn't want to burden you after all these years." She pauses and laughs, a rueful sound. "But I also seemed to remember that you'd rip me a new one if I ever tried to get away with calling myself a burden for you."

"You're damn right I would," Maria says. She wipes her eyes; she's not surprised that she's tearing up, but she wishes that she weren't just the same. "I'm glad you came back."

"I hoped you might want to see me," Carol says. "I'd hoped you might - you know. Even if I have to leave again."

"It'll be hard," Maria admits, even though her heart aches for her to just tell Carol _yes_. Yes to everything she's asking, and more. "You could die and I'd never know, because you're so many planets away. It'll be hard, if I don't know when or if I'd ever see you again every time you left."

"I figured," Carol says, sadly, and Maria can just _tell_ that Carol's going to pick the fight over Maria and Monica every time.

There was a time that Maria would have picked the fight, too, if Carol were still at her side every day.

So she picks the fight. 

She kisses Carol the way she's been wanting to since the first second Carol showed up in Louisiana after six years of Maria thinking she was dead: immediately deep, searching, a hot, slick slide of tongue against lips against teeth against tongue. She bites her way into Carol's mouth the way Carol always used to love, and pours all of her feelings for Carol into the kiss. She's tempting fallout with every slide of her lips, with every second she tastes Carol's mouth.

She's always been able to withstand the fallout before, though, so she rates her chances of withstanding this pretty high, too. 

Carol pulls away after ten exquisite, torturous minutes. "I'll come back more regularly," she promises. "Whenever I can get away."

"I can't ask you -"

"You never can," Carol says, a tiny smile hovering around her lips. "I always offer, though." She pauses, frowns. "I can't promise specific times, but I can try my best." 

Maria's got her head screwed on tight to her shoulders. She's got her feet on the ground. She hasn't been off in the clouds for years. She doesn't say, _or you could take us with you_ , because she knows that Carol can't. Maria couldn't allow herself and Monica to go, anyway; they have lives here on Earth. "Just give me a way to keep in contact," she says, instead. "Like that fancy-ass wrist array of yours."

Carol grins, wicked and beautiful in the moonlight and the soft glow coming from the front window. "I was hoping you'd say that," she says, and reaches into her bag.

+++

"Oh, fuck," Carol says, her voice muffled from where she's got her arm pressed over her mouth. "Fuck, Maria, you're so - you're so -"

 _Good at this_ , Maria finishes for her, pushing her tongue deep inside Carol's warm depths. She tastes musky, the salt of her slick and her sweat gathering around her clit. It's another hot day in California; they've come off of another successful practice fight just this afternoon. Dr. Lawson commended both of them, and it felt nearly as good as Carol's head between Maria's legs twenty minutes ago.

Maria's been at this for fifteen minutes now, bringing Carol to the edge again and again with long, deep licks and a few careful nibbles. Honestly, she may have brought Carol _over_ the edge a time or two, but since Carol hasn't pushed Maria's head away yet, Maria keeps on. 

She reaches down her own body, pushes her fingers against her own clit and rubs it, firm little circles that keep time with the pace she's using to fuck Carol with her tongue. And it's good, it's so exquisitely good, as good as it's ever been. 

Maria still keeps count, even though the number is well into the thousands now. Keeps count of their sex the same way she keeps count of how many times they tell each other _I love you_ , both with words and with actions. 

Some day, probably soon, she's going to run out of numbers. 

She can't _wait_.

Carol pushes her hands into Maria's hair - short now, shorter than it's been since she was a teenager; wearing it short and straight is miles easier than keeping it in a regulation bun all the time - and tugs, and Maria squeezes her thighs together around her hand and gasps through her own release. 

When she draws her face away from Carol's cunt, Carol grins at her, a loose, fucked-out grin. "Love you," she says, tugging on Maria's arm. "Kiss me. Wanna taste us."

So Maria does, fucking into Carol's mouth with her tongue the way she was fucking into Carol's hole just seconds before, and they end up going another round with just their fingers. 

"You took the trash out, right?" Maria asks, once they've caught their breath and the sweat has cooled and dried on both of their bodies.

Carol laughs and shoves at her, gently. "Trash day's day after tomorrow, you jerk," she says, and then she captures Maria's hand in hers and tugs her in for a cuddle. "You set the coffee up for the morning?"

"Ground and ready to brew," Maria promises. "I even set out your mug."

And that's another three counts of nonverbal _I love yous_ to add to the tally. 

It's barely five hours later that Maria jerks awake to the phone ringing in the hall. "I'm looking for a pilot," Dr. Lawson says, on the other end of the line. "I depart in an hour. Whoever makes it here first."

Carol's started the coffee, blearily, while Maria takes the call, but she only allows herself two scorching swallows before putting the mug on the counter. "Race you," she says, with a grin.

"It's cheating if you leave before I get Monica squared away." Maria points out.

Carol rolls her eyes. "I'm not going to leave until Monica's taken care of," she says. "My daughter comes before our competition to be the greatest lady pilot to ever chase the skies."

"I'll call the neighbors and see if they can take her to kindergarten if you get her up and dressed," Maria says. She's already thinking through the route she'll take to get to base.

"You're on," Carol says with a grin. "But when Monica's sorted... first one to base gets all the glory."

Maria kisses her to seal the deal.

+++

"Hey," Carol says, once Maria's figured out what parts of the wrist array to press to get a little hologram of Carol's face hovering above her arm. There's a smile in her voice. And on her face.

"Hi, baby," Maria says. "How's - where are you?"

"Somewhere near the crab nebula," Carol says. "I'd rather be eating your cooking instead, I gotta be honest with you."

"You hate my cooking," Maria says with a grin. Another nonverbal _I love you_. She's starting a fresh roster. A Carol, reborn tally.

"It's better than mine," Carol says. Another one. It's almost not even necessary to say the words out loud and in order at this point. "And lightyears better than some of the swill on this godforsaken planet."

"We'll get all your favorites when next time you're on Earth," Maria promises.

Carol grins. "It's a date," she says, and pauses. "I should be done with this mission in a month or so."

A month from now is the anniversary of their first kiss. Maria's glad now that her attempts to forget the date didn't work. "Don't be a stranger until then," she says.

"I promise," Carol says. "Give our daughter my love."

"She'll be sad she missed your call," Maria says. She reaches out and strokes Carol's hologram face, even though there's nothing really there. "Hurry home."

"Soon," says Carol, and they smile at each other until Carol's hologram fades from Maria's wrist.

+++

EPILOGUE:

After the Snap, Maria counts herself lucky that both she and Monica made it through unscathed. She hasn't heard from Carol in months, doesn't know if she's okay, and consoles herself with the knowledge that she's probably helping other worlds, if they were similarly affected. The communicator Carol'd given her decades ago has been on the fritz since the Snap, like the alien technology powering it has been as affected as Earth's infrastructure, too. So. She'll show up when she can. That's Maria's bet, and she'll stick to it until a Skrull shows up at her front door and tells her otherwise.

When Jimmy Rhodes calls Maria a few weeks in, she answers on the first ring. He's made a bigger name for himself than she could ever have imagined, twenty-some years ago - War Machine, her black ass - and she hasn't piloted a bird in at least five, but she's ready to serve where she's needed.

"Yeah?"

"Maria," he says, and pauses. "Mar, I don't know if you know this - but. Carol. Carol -?"

"She's there?" Maria asks, a knot loosening in her chest. Relaxing. "She made it through?"

"You knew she was alive?" Jimmy asks, incredulous. "Did you know she was a superhero?"

"That's my girl," Maria says with a smile, already planning the text to Monica. "Tell her I love her. Tell her I'll see her when she's saved the world."

**Author's Note:**

> title is from john donne's a valediction: of weeping,* specifically the following section:
> 
> Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear  
> To teach the sea what it may do too soon;  
> Let not the wind  
> Example find,  
> To do me more harm than it purposeth;  
> Since thou and I sigh one another's breath, 
> 
> find me on tumblr and twitter @ dulosis; i love to chat! also feel free to [reblog the fic post](https://dulosis.tumblr.com/post/184513968511/fic-let-not-the-wind-example-find-mcu-captain) if you feel so inclined.
> 
> *bc having five fics titled from a valediction: forbidding mourning is too many, probably


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